


Sexorexia (The Rationalization Remix)

by MiraMira



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen, Humor, Remix, Roommates, Sexual Content, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 04:55:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1592414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraMira/pseuds/MiraMira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Infinite diversity in infinite combinations be damned.  If Nyota Uhura's roommate doesn't quit trying to get her laid, Nyota is going to kill her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sexorexia (The Rationalization Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [igrockspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Proper Treatment of Sexorexia](https://archiveofourown.org/works/41037) by [igrockspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock). 
  * In response to a prompt by [igrockspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock) in the [remixmadness2014](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixmadness2014) collection. 



> I love the original work's sensitive and witty take on Gaila. Unfortunately, I couldn't provide Nyota the same insight, but I hope some of it still shows through, even from a second- (or third-)hand perspective.

The last straw with Gaila isn't when Nyota comes back from a grueling oral examination in Basic Klingon to find a strange man wearing nothing but an expectant smile (and an admittedly impressive erection) staring up at her from her bed. It isn't the time Gaila propositions her, or one of the many, many times she's been forced to gather her study materials with eyes half-closed and storm off in the direction of the library, Gaila's plaintive shouts of “You're welcome to join in!” echoing behind her.

No, the precise minute she decides she has had enough of her roommate comes when Jim Kirk slides into a seat across from her in the mess hall and asks, without preamble or regard for indoor voices: “Hey, did you know Gaila's been going around asking if she should buy you a vibrator?”

Normally, Nyota would take this occasion to note yet again how easily the name “Jim Kirk” elides into “jerk.” But the substance of his remarks overrides her usual instinct to ignore him until he goes away, and so for once, her fury is directed elsewhere. 

“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations be damned,” she snarls. “I'll kill her.”

“Whoa, whoa.” Kirk holds up his hands. “I didn't come here to be an accessory to murder. I just wanted to...”

“...Offer your services. I know, Kirk. Spare me.”

Kirk grins. “See, this is why I like you. You're smart.”

“That is _not_ why you 'like' me, and you know it.” Nyota doesn't know why she's trying to explain this to Kirk, of all people. Except that she can feel the explanation building into a rant, and he's as good a sounding board for that purpose as any other. “You think what's-his-name, Hutchison, cared about my intelligence, either? All he knew about me was that I was Gaila's roommate, and Gaila doesn't spend more than a second thinking about whether she should hop into bed with someone, so why should I be any different?”

The room has gone quiet, and she becomes dimly aware there is less movement in her immediate peripheral vision than there was a second ago. She also discovers that at some point during her tirade, she has transitioned from sitting to standing. Undeterred, she presses on. “I work hard to be taken seriously, as a student and a person. I do _not_ need the added stress of worrying what she's going to do next, or how it'll affect my reputation.”

A few scattered, mostly sarcastic claps break out around the mess hall as she takes her seat again. Kirk just snorts. “Please. I know you. Well, better than Hutchison,” he amends, in response to her raised eyebrow. “Though I promise, after watching him walk around the showers with heel prints in his ass for the better part of a month, nobody's going to make the mistake of thinking Gaila speaks for you again.”

“Good,” Nyota mutters.

“As for stress,” Kirk goes on, “I don't need to know you to tell you're the kind of person who worries when there's nothing to worry about, because you think it means you're not working hard enough.”

Before she can retort it's called “responsibility,” and he should try it some time, he continues. “And what does it get you in the end? When you've got your post and your promotions, what do you do with them when it's time to head back to your quarters for the night? Do you really want to end up like Admiral Archer, boring everyone to death about beagles because he can't remember how normal conversations work? I bet even the Vulcan on staff is better at small talk.”

 _“Half-Vulcan,”_ Nyota almost corrects him, in what is definitely not an attempt to avoid addressing the main argument, before a terrible realization hits her. Oh, God. Gaila goes to office hours with Commander Spock. Regularly. She's pretty sure Gaila would have shared the details by now if they do anything more than talk, but what if Gaila's asked _him_ whether Nyota would like a vibrator?

No. Nyota refuses to let herself think about that possibility. Let alone whether he might have a considered opinion on the subject. “Fine. So she's paved the road to my living hell with nothing but the very best of intentions. I just wish she'd put half as much effort into understanding the concept of boundaries as she does into getting me laid.”

Kirk leans back, a disturbing gleam approximating thought in his eye. “You wanna know the one thing Gaila wouldn't do with me?”

“Must I?” Nyota sighs.

“Oh, you'll like this one.” He smirks his smuggest, most infuriating smirk. “She wouldn't tell me your first name.”

At least five seconds elapse before Nyota can do anything but blink. “Really?”

“Really. And believe me, I was _quite_ persuasive.” Kirk waggles his eyebrows a bit for show, but there's a seriousness in his expression she's never seen there before: one she isn't used to encountering in anyone their age. “As friends go, you could do a lot worse.” 

Then, just as she's almost convinced herself she's not imagining it, the sudden bout of maturity vanishes. “Or friends with benefits, for that matter. She _did_ tell me about the time she suggested going down on you, and wow, did you miss out. The things she can do with her tongue...”

Nyota chucks her wadded-up napkin at his head, picks up her tray, and takes her leave.

If Kirk has any parting thoughts for her, Nyota doesn't hear them. She doesn't need to. Because damn it all to infinity, he's right. She _could_ do worse. At least she's never had to sleep with her PADD tucked under her pillow or risk waking up to find her homework sabotaged. She's never walked in to find the place trashed and her roommate high as a satellite or catatonic from some experimental drug cocktail whipped up in the labs. She's never had to say “no” to an offer more than once, or been threatened when she does. And she's not the Cardassian engineering student lying in the hospital, or the court-martialed human cadet from the Neutral Zone border who put him there.

So when Gaila presents her with a suspiciously plain-wrapped package and says in a trembling voice, “I'm sorry if this gift turns out to be another mistake, but I could really use a girlfriend around here,” she doesn't demand Gaila sign an affidavit that she means it in the platonic sense. Instead, she accepts the box with as much genuine gratitude as she can muster: if not for its contents, then for the gesture.

And while she never does tell Gaila as much, she eventually has to admit, the contents are a hell of a lot more effective than the shower head.


End file.
